Capítulo 1669: Chapter 1669: Eyes on the Porch
“What!” Sha Chuan and the other two reacted strongly, immediately becoming alert. Nie Xuan also quickly took out a square glass box, shook the flowing sand inside, and then laid it flat on his hand, observing the movement of the white sand.
The sand spread out in the box moved towards their direction, with some sand forming five dots, representing the five of them.
“There’s no other person or thing present.” Nie Xuan put away the prop and turned to Xu Huo, “Did your psychic power capture it?”
“I didn’t open my Spiritual World.” Xu Huo frowned, but the chilling feeling of being watched behind them didn’t disappear. After hesitating for just a second, he decisively said, “Let’s exit immediately.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he didn’t give the others time to react, swiftly bringing Sha Chuan and Wei Xiaoyi with him, and took a step that spanned two hundred meters.
Nie Xuan, who was with Tian Zhengjiang, also followed closely, but they only managed to take this one step.
Two hundred meters was the maximum distance they could move using Spatial Power within this space. However, when they stopped, Xu Huo and Nie Xuan turned grim.
They had definitely retreated over two hundred meters, yet in front of them was the same doorway with an eye pattern that they had passed not long ago.
Exchanging a glance, they tacitly led the people around them to retreat again. This time, they also moved two hundred meters, but as soon as their feet touched the ground, the doorway reappeared before them.
Sha Chuan and the others understood, and immediately said, “Could we be experiencing mental interference?”
They instinctively looked at Xu Huo, as he was the only Super Evolutionary with Mental Powers here.
“It’s uncertain.” Xu Huo faintly felt something similar, but his rational mind told him that this was unlikely.
Firstly, Psychic Power would generally cease to exist once it left a person, like the Mental Space in District 001 Flower City established on the basis of items;
Secondly, even if Psychic Power could persist, it shouldn’t be alive.
In Flower City’s Mental Space, it’s fixed, releasing power equally to anyone entering, but the feeling here suggests something is following them. There shouldn’t be such a “living” sensation here in the absence of people.
Looking at the eye patterns on the doorway, although it looks like an eye, it doesn’t mean it can “stare” at people.
“Let’s try again.” Nie Xuan said.
Xu Huo nodded. This time they chose to walk forward before retreating. Although they returned to the doorway, both attempts were smooth. However, when trying to move towards the entrance again, they returned to the doorway.
“Is this some kind of checkpoint?” Sha Chuan asked, “If you pass it, you can only return here?”
“Since we can only go forward and not back, why not keep moving forward?” Wei Xiaoyi suggested.
In reality, if Xu Huo hadn’t pointed it out, they wouldn’t have felt any influence; the game platform was still clear, and in the worst-case scenario, they could retreat to the station.
Xu Huo had already equipped himself with several life-saving props. This sort of targeted psychic pressure indeed felt troublesome, but like the others, he didn’t want to leave like this.
So this time, they quickened their pace slightly, following the path left by the moving Spatial Rays, they moved forward nearly five hundred meters.
The surroundings hadn’t changed, and to avoid touching the chaotic, dense Spatial Rays, they didn’t examine the doorways of the buildings on either side. However, as they continued forward, the feeling of being watched returned.
Xu Huo resisted the urge to open his Spiritual World, pushing against an unseen, heavy barrier blocking the side, and then walked to the nearest doorway.
Sure enough, above this doorway was another eye.
“It must be the eye causing the problem,” he said. “Going inward isn’t disturbed, but exiting is impossible; we’re trapped here.”
Sha Chuan and the others looked at each other, “Is it really that serious?”
Although they were stopped at the doorway, they didn’t really feel trapped. The space was chaotic, possibly due to some anomaly in the space, and using props and interference devices might resolve it. They hadn’t acted to maintain spatial balance.
Alternatively, they might find a way around, as they had been moving forward.
“This isn’t just a spatial issue.” Xu Huo glanced at Nie Xuan. He should be very aware that once uncontrollable forces appear here, it wouldn’t be just petty trouble. The absence of living people but presence of Psychic Power interfering with them was odd enough, which is why he started moving back immediately upon discovery, but couldn’t.
Their inability to go back, accompanied by the feeling of being watched here, signifies that the eye patterns hold a different significance, with more occurrences potentially deepening their influence, implying great risk in continuing forward.
The influence of Psychic Power cannot be avoided just with strong will. In Flower City’s Mental Space, Xin Rong almost turned into Stone, despite being a Super Evolutionary with Mental Powers.
Nie Xuan’s face turned stern, “So stopping here could keep us clear-headed, while moving forward risks us getting stuck.”
Xu Huo nodded.
Nie Xuan was silent for a while; he hadn’t anticipated such difficulty in traversing a thousand meters. If the increase in eye numbers signifies a stacking of Mental Interference Force, moving forward risks doubling the danger, forcing him to decide if they should risk it.
“Are you planning not to move?” He looked again at Xu Huo.
Xu Huo gestured to the sides, “Let’s try going sideways. However, it will require altering the current Spatial Ray state, potentially triggering a chain reaction.”
The spatial barrier formed by rays can be understood as a glass-like panel; the thicker the panel, the sturdier the barrier. A Super Evolver controlling Spatial Rays creates a barrier akin to double-layer glass, while a barrier formed with props could be akin to thickened bulletproof glass, and with higher-level items, this glass could withstand advanced item attacks.
If this glass is thickened to a wall’s width, and enlarged to the size of a building, then it’s equivalent to a building—impossible to easily break or shake.
But if this glass turns into a building-sized structure, or reaches an island or city size, props alone couldn’t easily damage it; further, if a floating or semi-floating space barrier of island or city scale exists, not only is it hard to damage, but its movement or collisions could cause disaster.
Xu Huo and his group are navigating such an environment now, incapable of visually measuring the size of objects formed by Spatial Rays, but gauging the rays’ maximum range suggests several spatial barriers might be locked around them.
Barrier may be an imprecise term; a spatial island or body might be more suitable.
Xu Huo proposed to move the smaller part around to explore the interiors of buildings on either side.